The Tin Soldier | Page 6

she?"
"If she weren't your daughter, you'd know it."
On the way home he said, "I am very proud of you, my dear."
Jean had tucked her arm through his. It was not raining, but the sky was
full of ragged clouds, and the wind blew strongly. They felt the push of
it as they walked against it.
"Oh," she said, with her cheek against his rough coat, "are you proud of
me because of my green ducks and my pink pussy cats?"
But she knew it was more than that, although he laughed, and she
laughed with him, as if his pride in her was a thing which they took
lightly. But they both walked a little faster to keep pace with their
quickened blood.
Thus their walk became a sort of triumphant progress. They passed the
British Embassy with the Lion and the Unicorn watching over it in the
night; they rounded the Circle and came suddenly upon a line of motor
cars.
"The Secretary is dining a rather important commission," the Doctor
said; "it was in the paper. They are to have a war feast--three courses,
no wine, and limited meats and sweets."
They stopped for a moment as the guests descended from their cars and
swept across the sidewalk. The lantern which swung low from the
arched entrance showed a spot of rosy color--the velvet wrap of a girl
whose knot of dark curls shone above the ermine collar. A Spanish
comb, encrusted with diamonds, was stuck at right angles to the knot.
Beside the young woman in the rosy wrap walked a young man in a fur

coat who topped her by a head. He had gray eyes and a small upturned
mustache--Jean uttered an exclamation.
"What's the matter?" her father asked.
"Oh, nothing--" she watched the two ascend the stairs. "I thought for a
moment that I knew him."
The great door opened and closed, the rosy wrap and the fur coat were
swallowed up.
"Of course it couldn't be," Jean decided as she and her father continued
on their wonderful way.
"Couldn't be what, my dear?"
"The same man, Daddy," Jean said, and changed the subject.
CHAPTER II
CINDERELLA
The next time that Jean saw Him was at the theater. She and her father
went to worship at the shrine of Maude Adams, and He was there.
It was Jean's yearly treat. There were, of course, other plays. But since
her very-small-girlhood, there had been always that red-letter night
when "The Little Minister" or "Hop-o'-my-Thumb" or "Peter Pan" had
transported her straight from the real world to that whimsical, tender,
delightful realm where Barrie reigns.
Peter Pan had been the climax!
Do you believe in fairies?
Of course she did. And so did Miss Emily. And so did her father,
except in certain backsliding moments. But Hilda didn't.
Tonight it was "A Kiss for Cinderella"--! The very name had been

enough to set Jean's cheeks burning and her eyes shining.
"Do you remember, Daddy, that I was six when I first saw her, and
she's as young as ever?"
"Younger." It was at such moments that the Doctor was at his best. The
youth in him matched the youth in his daughter. They were boy and girl
together.
And now the girl on the stage, whose undying youth made her the
interpreter of dreams for those who would never grow up, wove her
magic spells of tears and laughter.
It was not until the first satisfying act was over that Jean drew a long
breath and looked about her.
The house was packed. The old theater with its painted curtain had
nothing modern to recommend it. But to Jean's mind it could not have
been improved. She wanted not one thing changed. For years and years
she had sat in her favorite seat in the seventh row of the parquet and
had loved the golden proscenium arch, the painted goddesses, the red
velvet hangings--she had thrilled to the voice and gesture of the artists
who had played to please her. There had been "Wang" and "The
Wizard of Oz"; "Robin Hood"; the tall comedian of "Casey at the Bat";
the short comedian who had danced to fame on his crooked legs; Mrs.
Fiske, most incomparable Becky; Mansfield, Sothern--some of them,
alas, already gods of yesterday!
At first there had been matinées with her mother--"The Little Princess,"
over whose sorrows she had wept in the harrowing first act, having to
be consoled with chocolates and the promise of brighter things as the
play progressed.
Now and then she had come with Hilda. But never when she could help
it. "I'd rather stay at home," she had told her father.
"But--why--?"

"Because she laughs in the wrong places."
Her father never laughed in the wrong places, and he